Any fine Dim Sum restaurants can be found in Kowloon area? How much is about the cost?

If you review previous discussions here you will find that the Maxim's Restuarant in City Hall (next to the Star Ferry terminal - so only a few very picturesque minutes from Kowloon) is the standard recommendation. You need to get there early (10:30?) and preferably be in quite a big group (6+) to get one of the best table by the glass wall looking over the Harbour.

Cost depends entirely on how hungry you are. Somewhere in the range HK$150-300 per head.

Note also that you need to have a Cantonese speaker in your group unless you are adventurous in your approach to food.

[This message has been edited by christep (edited 02-27-2003).]

Spring Moon (at the Peninsula) serves very good dim sum, as well a Chinese style afternoon tea for about HK$200/person.

Across Middle Road in the basement of the Kowloon Hotel is Wan Long Court, which is supposedly operated by the same management of Spring Moon.

Fook Lum Moon, on Cameron Road, serves great dim sum as well as all kinds of Chinese delicacies. Order a steamed live fish to complete the experience.

Yan Ton Heen (formerly Lai Ching Heen) at the Inter-Continental serves good dim sum in a very elegant room. Prices are a bit steep though.

Dynasty (at the New World Renaissance) serves excellent dim sum at very reasonable prices. The dining room is in need of renovation, and the service is inconsistent. However, it presents one of the best values in Hong Kong for dim sum.

A bit out of the way is Shang Palace (at the Kowloon Shngri-La). This is a very elegant establishment with good service to match. Dim sum is very good here as well, and they offer different varieties regularly.

Other dim sum establishments can be found all over Kowloon, in Tsim Sha Tsui at least there are many on Canton Road, Nathan Road, etc. Many can be found in Star House, Ocean Terminal complex, and the New World Centre.

For directions to any of the aforementioned establishments, just ask the hotel concierge. They are all within 5 mins. walking time of each other.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by jkc22:
Across Middle Road in the basement of the Kowloon Hotel is Wan Long Court, which is supposedly operated by the same management of Spring Moon.


Dynasty (at the New World Renaissance) serves excellent dim sum at very reasonable prices. The dining room is in need of renovation, and the service is inconsistent. However, it presents one of the best values in Hong Kong for dim sum.

</font>

I second both of these wholeheartedly. Now I have an incentive to try the rest you mention...

NY Times article on dim sum this week:

Trip to the Heart of Dim Sum
By R. W. APPLE Jr.

HONG KONG
ELEVEN o'clock Sunday morning, in the 25th-floor kitchen of the Mandarin Oriental hotel's Cantonese restaurant, Man Wah. Kong Tseuk Tong, 47, dressed in the white tunic and checked trousers worn by chefs around the world, stands at an immaculate stainless-steel counter, ready to work his magic. His assistants wait at a respectful distance.

Like a cabinetmaker or a glass blower, he is a skilled craftsman, the product of years of exacting training. Dim sum is his craft, and in Hong Kong Sunday lunch is show time for the dim sum master. It is then that families rich and poor — children, grannies and all — gather to drink tea, discuss the week's events and eat the savories made by Mr. Kong and others like him.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/19/dining/19HONG.html?pagewanted=1

Dim Sum:
http://www.discoverhongkong.com/eng/gourmet/bob/dimsum/index.jhtml

The other day had dimsum at a place called "The Square" in (tadaa!) Exchange Square. I thought it was the best dimsum I've had in HK (and hence the world). I also hear that Man Wah at the Mandarin is set to reopen next week now that the SARS scare is winding down.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by jkc22:
Spring Moon (at the Peninsula) serves very good dim sum, as well a Chinese style afternoon tea for about HK$200/person.
</font>

jkc22,

Forgive my ignorance, but what is Chinese-style afternoon tea? I thought that you just drink tea and eat dim sum.

Pickles,

Is the best dim sum found in HK really the best in the world anymore? I've been told (so I'm no expert here) that the best dim sum chefs are in San Francisco and Vancouver because they emigrated before the 1997 Handover.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by bkong:


Pickles,

Is the best dim sum found in HK really the best in the world anymore? I've been told (so I'm no expert here) that the best dim sum chefs are in San Francisco and Vancouver because they emigrated before the 1997 Handover.</font>

Haven't been to Vancouver in about 30 years, so I can't comment on that, but when it comes to SFO, I've been around the block a few times there in the dim sum front. My top favorite there is Yank Sing, which holds its own quite well with the Hong Kong places, but the best in Hong Kong (Wang Long, Spring Moon, Man Wah, Dynasty, One Harbour, The Square, etc.) are, in my opinion, distinctly better.

[This message has been edited by Pickles (edited 05-23-2003).]

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If you're looking for a place that has great dim sum, try "DIM SUM", in Happy Valley. They serve dim sum made to order all day. There are also many dessert places in the area worth noting. I also recommend Yung Kee for their famous "roasted goose". It's over in Central. Lan Kwai Fong area to be exact.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by gemini573:
If you're looking for a place that has great dim sum, try "DIM SUM", in Happy Valley. They serve dim sum made to order all day. There are also many dessert places in the area worth noting. I also recommend Yung Kee for their famous "roasted goose". It's over in Central. Lan Kwai Fong area to be exact. </font>

I too have been to Dim Sum and reccomend it, especially, if you are unable to go at the normal dim sum times.

Why is it essential to go with a Cantonese speaker? Don't they just push those carts around and you just point? Or is it that there are dishes that are not on the carts?

I do not think it is essential to have a Cantonese speaker with you but it would be helpful since some restaurants no longer have trolley service.

Thats my worry. I cannot speak cantonese, and only know the names of a couple of dim sum dishes (and will inevitably pronounce them wrong!).

I'm happy to point, and willing to try most foods just don't want to find my dim sum restaurant experince too stressful.

Dean

Having been to the Maxim's at City Hall quite a few times in the last year, it does seem to me that the level of English amongst the staff is increasing a little. Obviously it is easier if you have a Cantonese speaker (or traditional Chinese reader, since nearly all the carts have labels) but you should be able to avoid any major "surprises" if you can only speak English and can be a little patient. Not all the cart drivers have any English, but there are plenty of staff around the restaurant who do and who can be called over.

Obviously this doesn't apply if, for example, you have a major allergy to some particular food, or an inviolable prohibition on eating certain things for religious reasons.

They may not be super-proficient in English but they are certainly the friendliest! :) We made it to Maxim's City Hall at last call once (they stop serving dim sum at 3, I believe) and the push-cart ladies jumped through hoops to make sure I got everything I wanted (and even asked the kitchen to steam some stuff that had already sold out). I was very impressed. Then again, it helped that I spoke to them in Cantonese. Price is right and the view ain't half bad either.

I would say that if a non-Cantonese speaker had some food allergies, it'd be best to go to a hotel restaurant for dim sum. Invariably, most high-end hotel restaurant staff speak good English and can explain the multitude of ingredients in any particular dish. The ordering process is usually done by check-marking a list of set items (kinda like sushi) and therefore alleviates the ambiguity of what you're ordering (although, it kinda takes the fun out of it). If Man Wah is as good for dim sum as it is for dinner, I would highly recommend it not just for the food but also for the view.

A previous poster mentioned Yank Sing in SF. IMHO, that's the best dim sum restaurant I've encountered in the US. Sometimes when my craving for dim sum hits a fever pitch, I even dream of taking the trans-con flight just for Yank Sing :)

As the subject says......

I've only had limited dim sum experience in Toronto (the one at the chinese restaurant in the Metropolitan Hotel is sublime) and Vancouver (any suggestions? I've only been to places in the City and I hear Richmond is where the action is) so I can't say that Yank Sing is better than anything Canada has to offer. But if you're in the SF area, do check out Yank Sing. I can only be so lucky to live as close to SF (and Asia!) as you do :)

there wasn't a queuing system and people would hover over your table and then slowly and surreptitiously take a free seat at your table while you were still finishing up. Also, carts were pushed around with the servers barking out whatever was being offered. Ah, those were the days! :D


Vancouver (any suggestions? I've only been to places in the City and I hear Richmond is where the action is)


At any rate, there was a thread here somewhere about dm sum in Vancouver. Used to be actually limited to "Chinatown" some 20 years or more ago but it's everywhere now.

Better places (with the caveat that quality seems to vary with day of week, depending on if the A, B or C team is in the kitchen) are (location only, I don't remember most names):


Kirin on West 12th & Cambie - top floor (Vancouver)
one in the Marine building on Burrard Street - ground level (Vancouver)
one on West 41st south side, 1/2 block east of East Boulevard upstairs (Vancouver)
one that used to be Regal Meridien - east side of Granville around vicinity of West 64th Ave & near Marpole library branch (Vancouver)
one opposite the Yaohan shopping mall on No. 3 Road - right opposite the traffic lights (Richmond)
Shiang Palace - on No. 3 Road (Richmond). Some SFO-based FTers have raved about it
at YVR - yeah the one near the international departure gates though it is a bit expensive and charges for tea


Not claiming this to be an exhaustive list as there are so many places that I won't even attempt to discover where they all are.

My GF's hairdresser (from Shanghai) says she likes one (too) near where we live but we've never been there.

Also, carts were pushed around with the servers barking out whatever was being offered. Ah, those were the days! :D
The two places where I eat most of my dim sum (Maxim's in City Hall, and the big one whose name I forget in the United Centre) still have this. In fact I was hardly aware that there was any other way!

Having been to the Maxim's at City Hall quite a few times in the last year, it does seem to me that the level of English amongst the staff is increasing a little. Obviously it is easier if you have a Cantonese speaker (or traditional Chinese reader, since nearly all the carts have labels) but you should be able to avoid any major "surprises" if you can only speak English and can be a little patient. Not all the cart drivers have any English, but there are plenty of staff around the restaurant who do and who can be called over.



Also make sure that the Cantonese speaker can READ Chinese fluently.
(i.e. a Hong Kong Chinese, and not an ABC or CBC like me who can speak but not read [only 20% and can make wrong guesses] or write)

Some restaurants (lower end ones) have their "specials" posted on the wall in Chinese characters.

Also, at some restaurants instead of having carts of dim sum pushed around, they give you a menu/card on which you would fill out indicating the items you want.

The main problem for me is that even if the menu/card has an English translation, I would have a hard time figuring out what each item is as I only know the name of item in Cantonese (and can't read the Chinese characters). As a result, it can be possible to order the wrong item!

The two places where I eat most of my dim sum (Maxim's in City Hall, and the big one whose name I forget in the United Centre) still have this. In fact I was hardly aware that there was any other way!

it's still that way! ;) I went to Pearl City(?) in Causeway Bay years ago and even back then, the carts had signs and the servers weren't too interested in telling you what they were offering if you couldn't read. At least over here, you have to check a piece of paper which serves as the menu in most places. Sometimes it's hard to figure out what you want, even if the menu is translated to a Roman script as Chinese menus are notoriously brief and curt as far as description of the dishes go.

I believe the restaurant in Vancouver on Burrard Street mentioned by terenz is the Imperial Restaurant. Sun Sui Wah is commonly known for excellent dim sum in Vancouver also. One of my favourites is Pink Pearl on Hastings Street -- due to the East Van location, I find it is comparable to other places, but a little cheaper too..............

In Toronto, I agree with bluedc, about Lai Wah Heen, in the Metropolitan Hotel -- dim sum was sublime and those egg tarts were to die for!!

In Hong Kong, is it worth going to Yan Toh Heen in the IC Hotel? I assume it is very pricey. . . . and between YTH and Spring Moon, which place am I better off in. Will be in HKG in December -- I know, quite the ways off. . . .

Totally addicted to egg tarts :D

My favorite (HK-style) dim sum dishes are probably siu mai, har gow, anything that has shrimp or rice or noodles, spare ribs, etc. I would probably judge a dim sum restaurant based on a benchmark of those few items - consistency of the siu mai, the rice paper used for the har gow, flavor of selected items, etc. Freshness of ingredients ranks higher than variety, in my opinion.

Veering back on topic, I've only had dim sum in two places in HK - Luk Yu Tea House and Maxim's City Hall (and also the branch in Chek Lap Kok). Dunno why I haven't ventured into hotel-style dim sum in HK but my experiences with dim sum in hotel restaurants in other Asian cities have been positive. I would imagine experiences at YTH/Spring Moon/Man Wah would be positive overall. The quality/variety/uniqueness at hotel restaurants is usually head and shoulders above the competition (and so is the price :)).

Sometimes it's hard to figure out what you want, even if the menu is translated to a Roman script as Chinese menus are notoriously brief and curt as far as description of the dishes go.

This is SO true! I'm totally dependent on point-and-choose cart-based dim sum. When it's a menu card situation, I just wing it and select the obvious ones while at the same time randomly picking the ones that sound the best (and most delicious) in English! It helps that I speak Cantonese but I'm useless when it comes to reading Chinese characters (I'm a disgrace to all overseas Chinese ;)).

Other Favorite places:

Metropole, near Admiralty subway station (not the Metropole hotel in Kowloon)

Dragon-i: All you can eat dim sum, M-Sat, for only HK$108 (about US$14). Swank nightclub that before 1130 pm is a good restaurant. Afterwards, they get exclusive on you unless you're Jackie Chan or Zhang Ziyi.

Luk Yu Teahouse in Central. Service is a little gruff but the place has been around for decades.

HONG KONG
ELEVEN o'clock Sunday morning, in the 25th-floor kitchen of the Mandarin Oriental hotel's Cantonese restaurant, Man Wah. Kong Tseuk Tong, 47, dressed in the white tunic and checked trousers worn by chefs around the world, stands at an immaculate stainless-steel counter, ready to work his magic. His assistants wait at a respectful distance.

Like a cabinetmaker or a glass blower, he is a skilled craftsman, the product of years of exacting training. Dim sum is his craft, and in Hong Kong Sunday lunch is show time for the dim sum master. It is then that families rich and poor — children, grannies and all — gather to drink tea, discuss the week's events and eat the savories made by Mr. Kong and others like him.

Of course, North Americans and Europeans also like dim sum, which literally means "touch of the heart." Australians like it, too, although they call it yum cha, which means "drink tea." Restaurants like Yank Sing in San Francisco and Sun Sui Wah in Vancouver and especially Lai Wah Heen in Toronto (where in season you will find delicately sweet pea-sprout dumplings) serve dim sum worthy of any gourmand's palate.

But Hong Kong, which has about 10,000 places to eat, probably more per capita than any other city, is utterly obsessed with dim sum, and no place else comes close to offering dim sum of equal excellence and variety. This is dim sum nirvana.

Some people eat it every day. If few can afford to eat the meticulously hand crafted creations of Mr. Kong, and in a setting as ritzy as the Mandarin, nobody need go without. There is a dim sum parlor to fit every pocketbook, and at the biggest, noisiest and most frenetic of them people wait in line for up to an hour for their dose of char siu bao (fluffy white buns stuffed with barbecued pork) and har gau (translucent little purse-shaped dumplings filled with chopped shrimp and bamboo shoots).

"There are hundreds of kinds of dim sum, and new ones are developed every week," said Henry Ho, the Man Wah's courtly manager, who started there as a bus boy in 1969. "Ours are a bit fresher than most, made to order from the best ingredients we can find, but the same rules apply here that apply everywhere else: take char siu bao and har gau off the menu this Sunday, and next Sunday you won't have any customers."

The best chefs apply special touches to the classics. I watched Mr. Kong, a stocky, powerfully built man with corded forearms and asbestos hands, apply his.

First he mixed rice flour, a bit of potato starch and boiling water in a small metal bowl — "must be boiling," he explained, "or the pastry won't be clear." He turned out the resulting dough on the counter, kneaded it for a minute or so and added a bit of carrot juice before plopping the dough back into the bowl. "Carrot juice?" I asked. "Wait and see," he answered.

Next he nipped out a bit of dough, flattened it into a circle with a single blow from the side of his cleaver, and dropped a tiny lump of premixed filling (shrimp, bamboo shoots, pork fat and coriander leaves, all chopped finely) into its center. Holding the nascent dumpling in his left hand and pushing up its sides until he had a cup shape, he repeatedly pinched the top with his right to close it, moving so fast that I could scarcely follow what he was doing. A final shaping on a wooden board, and he was nearly done.

But not quite. He cooked a mixture of flour and beet juice on a propane stove, made a tiny pastry tube from kitchen parchment and used it to apply two red dots to the golden dumpling. Then he set the finished item in front of me. "Goldfish har gao," he said, laughing. Of course. With red eyes.

The whole process had taken about four minutes, and it took four more to steam the "fish," along with three others, in a bamboo basket. When it came to the table, it looked astonishingly realistic, its tail and fins wobbling slightly when the steamer was opened, as if it were swimming languidly in a pond. The bright green of the coriander and the pink of the shrimp were on display beneath the thin pastry "skin," exactly as Mr. Kong had promised.

MY wife, Betsey, and I sampled several other dim sum specialties at the Man Wah, including siu mai (a pork dumpling), topped unusually with a quarter-size slice of abalone and crab roe; a miraculously crisp deep-fried mango and seafood roll; and an ethereal coconut tart. There were 28 choices on the menu, which changes every three months, and that only scratches the surface of Mr. Kong's repertory. He told me he can make 15 kinds of pastry, European as well as Asian, and like many dim sum chefs he is adept at baking, pan-frying, deep-frying and steaming both sweet and savory dishes.

Man Wah's choice of teas was equally impressive, including oolongs like Ti Kwan Yin, a fruity green brew from Fujian Province, on the southeast coast; flower-flavored teas like rose, chrysanthemum and jasmine, which is the most popular; mild, yellowish Silver Needle, a "white" tea made from unopened buds; and my favorite, Pu-Er, a potent, earthy fermented tea from Yunnan Province, not far from the Burmese border. All are served with sober ceremony.

Such refinement is a long way from the origins of dim sum. The Cantonese teahouses of centuries ago were boisterous places, where a man came to eat, argue and sometimes bet that his caged bird could outsing the one owned by the nobody at the next table. Like pubs in England and cafes in France, they flourished in part because only the very wealthy had houses or apartments big enough to receive friends.

Originally, the morsels on a Hong Kong dim sum menu were almost all Cantonese in origin. But as John J. Clancey, an American former priest who has lived in Hong Kong for many years and is married to a Chinese woman, explained to me over drinks one evening, the Cantonese are great assimilators. Salty Hunan ham, served with honey inside a hinge of soft white bread, is often encountered in local teahouses these days. Pot stickers, a dim sum standby, originated in Beijing, in the far-off north. Soup dumplings, like the impeccably juicy ones served at Xiao Nan Guo on Des Voeux Road in Hong Kong, migrated south from Shanghai.

And custard tarts, like the marvelous version served at Victoria City Seafood in central Hong Kong (more about it later), combine flaky European pastry with a smooth and creamy Chinese filling.

But the Cantonese are also keen businesspeople, and sometimes they cut corners, even in the most traditional of places, like the Luk Yu Teahouse. Wealthy men, leaving their Rolls-Royces and BMW's in Stanley Street in the care of their drivers, idle there for hours every morning. One of the teak booths is often occupied by a chic woman who consumes newspapers and cigarettes just as avidly as tea and dim sum.

The ceiling fans, the brass spittoons and the grumpy waitresses with tin trays slung around their necks have changed little in 50 years.

I joined William Mark Yiu-Tong at Luk Yu at 8 o'clock one morning, and I got an earful. A noted dim sum connoisseur, he drew diagrams of proper dim sum techniques on the tablecloth with a chopstick dipped in soy sauce, and he complained.

Complained that once-mandatory three-year apprenticeships are disappearing, that chefs are no longer willing to come to work at 3 or 4 a.m. to prepare dim sum for breakfast, that craftsmanship is giving way to machines and that "half the dim sum in Hong Kong is made across the border in Shenzhen," an hour away, and hauled in by refrigerated trucks.

"The quick-buck mentality," he said, tugging his Charlie Chan goatee and adjusting his red cardigan. "These are delicacies. They must be delicate."

Relenting a bit, Mr. Mark, who goes to the Luk Yu six mornings a week, praised the house's spring rolls — "obviously handmade and hand-filled," he said, "because the pastry is slightly uneven." They shattered satisfyingly when cut in two. But he was less generous about the har gau, although the skin was nicely translucent: "They've used sodium bicarbonate on the shrimp as a tenderizer," he said, "and look here, there are only nine pleats, when there should be at least 10."

Because I was sitting with Mr. Mark, I was shielded from the Luk Yu's notorious indifference (some would call it hostility) to foreigners. Immediately after World War II, the owners put up a sign saying, "We are licensed to serve Chinese only," which was patently untrue. But then even the Chinese can have bad moments in Stanley Street. Harry Lam, a local millionaire, was gunned down last Nov. 30 by a hit man, apparently from the mainland, as he finished his tea.

Dim sum is not expensive. At the plainer places, simple dishes like steamed chicken feet, popular with the locals but not, I confess, with me, cost only $2. Even in the dining rooms of the grand hotels, like the Mandarin, the Kowloon Shangri-La and the Peninsula, which serve dim sum only at lunchtime and in some cases only on weekends, a portion of something comparatively recherché like bird's nest dumplings or marinated goose costs only $8.50.

For the basic no-frills experience, the help of a Cantonese speaker is required, because no English is spoken in most of the bare-bones spots. We were lucky to have the company of Susan Macnaughton, a Scottish lawyer, and her Hong Kong-born assistant, Katherine Cheung, on our visit to Chiu Chow Garden, a great barn of a place, with geese hanging behind a plate glass window, near the main Wing On Department Store.

Ms. Cheung showed us how to say thank you over the din caused by clashing plates and bellowing waitresses: simply tap two fingers on the table. I have heard a half-dozen explanations of this gesture, mostly relating it in some obscure way to the old custom of kowtowing to the emperor. She ordered lovely daffodil tea, and taught us how to slide the lid of the pot to the side when we wanted a refill. And she helped us to suss out what was being offered on each of the carts careering noisily around the room, identified (but not for us) by white plastic signs on the front.

Our visit came right before the Chinese New Year — red banners and lanterns wishing everyone good luck in the Year of the Goat were up all over town — and one of the things we ate were turnip squares, traditionally associated with the holidays because they could be made from staples when the shops were closed. Actually, they contain no turnips, but rather shredded daikon radish combined with cured pork, dried shrimp and chopped coriander, shaped into a flat cake, steamed and fried. Slightly sweet, slightly bitter, they are addictive. I could have eaten a dozen.

BUT there were other carts to pillage — shark's fin dumpling ("only one fishy bite in there," Ms. Cheung said; "it costs too much"), crunchy taro puffs, a meatball subtly flavored with dried citrus peel and an absolutely fabulous, if daunting-sounding, dish of beef lungs, tripe and liver, steamed in a broth rich with star anise. Fabulous for an innards-lover like me, that is, but not for the women. Ms. Macnaughton announced that she had a culinary rule, "nothing above the neck or below the waist," and the others passed, too.

Even Ms. Cheung could not completely solve the day's mystery. It centered on a scrumptious bunch of greens that a waitress plunged into the vat of boiling stock on her cart, trimmed with scissors and dressed with a light, gingery sauce. The sign identified it only as "green vegetable"; it was obviously a member of the cabbage family, but there are 200 Chinese brassicas, many with no English names. Questions were asked, heads were scratched, a name was finally proffered — "wong tai choy," literally "king vegetable." No help.

We found dim sum everywhere, even Oz dim sum, at a place called Oscar's Australian, which we didn't try. Also a couple of dozen first-rate vegetarian dim sum at a sweet little place with marble-top tables near the Happy Valley race track called, with negligible originality, Dim Sum. For us, Dim Sum's best dim sum weren't vegetarian at all. No, we voted for the good old pot stickers, made here with bits of pork, chives and carrots, unusually spicy for Hong Kong, crisp and caramelized on the outside, served with a zippy vinegar-based sauce. Two less familiar offerings were our runners-up — cha siu so, pork in pastry cases, almost as eggy as challah, studded with sunflower seeds, was one; shrimp dumplings with sweet chili sauce the other.

Maxim's Palace, in the City Hall, with windows looking across the harbor to the ships docked at the Kowloon piers, is just as big as Chiu Chow Gardens (more than 100 tables), but much snappier. Head waitresses in yellow jackets and long black skirts split to the thigh patrolled the room beneath three enormous crystal chandeliers. They (and most of their customers) chattered constantly into their cellphones. Starched white cloths covered the tables and, wonder of Chinese wonders, there was a no-smoking section.

Here, too, service was from carts, but communication was much easier. Succulent, chewy bits of veal in a sauce liberally laced with black pepper reminded Betsey of the grillades served with grits in New Orleans. I liked the crisp scallion pancakes. We both scarfed down the spring rolls, filled with shredded chicken, which looked as if they had been made from antique vellum, and something we had not encountered before — cheung fun, which are rolls of steamed rice paste, about six inches long, filled in this case with shrimp and yellow Chinese chives, but sometimes with barbecued pork or with beef. As with many dim sum, the taste of the rolls had an agreeable suggestion of sweetness .

The tea, boiling hot and almost too astringent, played a key balancing role, cutting through the richness of many of the things we ate.

Victoria City Seafood, atop the Citic Tower a block or so away, serves what many, including the writer Nina Simonds, consider Hong Kong's premier dim sum. Who am I to argue, after the lunchtime banquet they served the two of us?

It included steamed crab coral dumplings, chock full of rich, smoky, highly perfumed juice and the intense flavor of mud crab; small, roundish Shanghai minced meat pies, pavéed with sesame seeds as a ring is pavéed with diamonds, giving them a fine crunch; vegetable dumplings, as sheer as a stocking, filled with Chinese parsley, perilla and carrots; and a miniature packet of glutinous rice with bites of chicken, ham and wood-ear mushrooms, all wrapped in a lotus leaf.

We drank wine, not tea, which was a sacrilege, I suppose, but the temptation was great. A reserve wine vault was filled with magnums and jeroboams of first-growth claret, and I couldn't resist a fine Coldstream Hills pinot noir from Australia.

When the unctuous mango pudding with coconut sauce came out, I surrendered. Even my mother's banana pudding, one of my favorite childhood sweets, couldn't hold a candle to it. But then she had no mangoes.

I have 8 hours between flights in HKG, planning on taking the star ferry, going to the top of the peak and munching some dim sum at the least.

Any of the above places fit into my schedule?

I have 8 hours between flights in HKG, planning on taking the star ferry, going to the top of the peak and munching some dim sum at the least.

Any of the above places fit into my schedule?

Unless your 8 hours are sometime in the fall, you can forget about the Man Wah. The whole building is closed for renovations until then. It is my favorite dim sum place in HK. There are many other good ones, the Luk Yu not being among them.

I personally like Victoria Seafood Restaurant. Their most conveniently located outlet is in the CITIC building near the Admiralty MTR station, and it's not an awfully long walk if you just walk from the peak tram station, if you happen to be taking it. It's got a reasonable view.

I'm not sure how foreigner-friendly they are (i.e. if they have English menus for dim sum and what not). They aren't a pushcart restaurant, but rather a dim-sum sheet restaurant, so ....

Yeah, the Man Wah is closed for renovations, as is the whole hotel

We have had dim sum at Luk Yu several times, and have always found it to be great. The waiters may be gruff, but they have always been pretty helpful to us.

Dim sum at Spring Moon at the Peninsula is good. We actually preferred it to the evening menu.

I agree, Yank Sing in SF is tops in the US, and the atmosphere is nice. Another great place for dim sum is the China House at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok. I can't wait to go back.

One Harbour Rd in the Grand Hyatt is expensive but very good!

Also got to love browsing the menu at Fook Lam Moon and seeing US$800 bowls of Shark's Fin Soup.

And I love the photos at Dim Sum in Happy Valley :)

I have 8 hours between flights in HKG, planning on taking the star ferry, going to the top of the peak and munching some dim sum at the least.

Any of the above places fit into my schedule?

EdisonCarter and I found the City Hall Maxim's to be a convenient place to visit after our trip to The Peak, as it's adjacent to the Star Ferry Terminal and the bus stop for the shuttle that takes you from the terminal to the tram at the bottom of the peak.

I'd advise, if you can, to go right when Maxim's opens and then do The Peak. We did The Peak first and ended up waiting about an hour to be seated at Maxim's on a Friday at about 11:30 a.m.

I was perfectly happy with the quality of the dim sum at Maxim's; I knew most of the Cantonese names of the dishes and was able to point to the things I recognized but didn't remember the names. The quality was right up there with the nicer places here in the San Gabriel Valley and just a shade below my favorite places in Vancouver.

I too have been to Dim Sum and reccomend it, especially, if you are unable to go at the normal dim sum times.

1. Quality wise:
I also agree. I think they serve the best dim sum in HK IMHO.
Their signature dim sums are shark's fin DS & abalone DS, but I personally recommend their Watip (panfried pork dumplings). Its crispy skin and succulent pork fillings are heavenly.

It's not a traditional pick-from-the-cart style. You simply order a la carte and they serve to your table just as a regular restaurant. Their menu shows photos of all kinds of dim sum they serve, so you shouldn't have any problem in ordering.


2: Value wise:
Dragon-i.
Quality-wise this place is not top rated, but their all-you-can-eat dim sum lunch special is superb.
HK$118 + 10% = 129.80.
(Their regular a la carte dim sum prices are HK$25 to 30)

Another vote for Spring Moon at the Peninsula. Tasty, fresh and nicely served.

While wandering around on the Kowloon side this past weekend, the Peninsula and Sheraton were both booked solid and waits were 40+ minutes. We did not have time but were fortunate to stumble upon the following place, I'm hoping someone might be familiar with the place and know the name.

As stated, I don't have the name but it is very easy to find.

At the intersection of Haufook St and Carnarvon Rd, which forms a T, this T/intersection is between Granville Rd and Cameron Rd. This is very close (approx 4 blocks) north of the Sheraton.

On the west side of Carnarvon Rd where Haufook St deadends into, on the 3rd floor (take elevator) is a dim sum restaurant. ALL Chinese in the restaurant, not one other Westerner in sight.(while as stated in posts above that this does not guarantee good dim sum, I took it as a positive sign). This place does have English menus but you have to ask. 8 dishes for 84 HKG so only $12 US. Great fun as the people around us kind of looked out for us, when a waitress would come to the table with a dish, our fellow diners would take a look at the dish and then point to us to help the waitress out. When we were having trouble gaining the attention to pay our bill, they shouted out to get the bill for us. ^ The person that seated us also was very helpful in marking our paper slip which indicated what dim sum treats we wanted. Great Food. ^

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A previous poster mentioned Yank Sing in SF. IMHO, that's the best dim sum restaurant I've encountered in the US. Sometimes when my craving for dim sum hits a fever pitch, I even dream of taking the trans-con flight just for Yank Sing :)

If you're touching down in SFO, there's no need to go into downtown SF for dim sum. 5 minutes from the airport is the Hong Kong Flower Lounge, in Millbrae, CA, which serves excellent dim sum (or "yum cha" in Cantonese). I've seen folks with luggage who have just arrived from a flight or are on their way out for a departure.

It's very convenient to US-101 freeway, one exit south of the SF Airport exit, Millbrae Avenue exit, and it's at the junction of Millbrae Avenue and El Camino Real.

If you're touching down in SFO, there's no need to go into downtown SF for dim sum. 5 minutes from the airport is the Hong Kong Flower Lounge, in Millbrae, CA, which serves excellent dim sum (or "yum cha" in Cantonese). I've seen folks with luggage who have just arrived from a flight or are on their way out for a departure.

It's very convenient to US-101 freeway, one exit south of the SF Airport exit, Millbrae Avenue exit, and it's at the junction of Millbrae Avenue and El Camino Real.

Great advice!

I may be mistaken but last I checked, "dim sum" is in Cantonese as well and it is the most widely used name for this type of cuisine originating from HK. The term "yum cha" is used interchangeably with "dim sum" only in certain places like Australia, IIRC.

I may be mistaken but last I checked, "dim sum" is in Cantonese as well and it is the most widely used name for this type of cuisine originating from HK. The term "yum cha" is used interchangeably with "dim sum" only in certain places like Australia, IIRC.

First, let me say that I am Cantonese and grew up in Hong Kong.

"Yum cha" (literally "drink tea") and "dim sum" refer to two different things. I'd say something that translate to "Let's go yum cha today". I would NOT say "Let's go dim sum today". But if you ask me "What do you eat when you go yum cha"? Then I will answer, "I eat dim sum".

"Dim sum" refers the actual dish. "Yum cha" refers to the meal type.

Great advice!

I may be mistaken but last I checked, "dim sum" is in Cantonese as well and it is the most widely used name for this type of cuisine originating from HK. The term "yum cha" is used interchangeably with "dim sum" only in certain places like Australia, IIRC.

as a Hong Kong Chinese, we never say "sik dim sum" (eat dim sum). we always say "yum cha" (drink tea).

Q: "where d'ya want to go for lunch?"
A: "yum cha"

Thanks for the clarification! :-)

To think, I've always said "let's go to dim sum" all these years. How silly ;-)

Thanks for the clarification - I lived in HK, my wife is Cantonese, and we've always used the term "yum cha".

I have always liked Tang Court in the Langham Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui. They have great pan-fried crispy Cheung Fun (rice noodles). The service is impeccable.

In the Bay Area, I have grown to like Zen Peninsula in Millbrae, after deciding that I didn't want to wait 45 minutes at Koi Palace every time I wanted to have dim sum, even if I got a waiting number in advance by phone.